At the same time an explosion rocked Kabal's apartment over in Brooklyn, a young couple in Long Island sat on the woman's couch in her duplex, watching Thor on DVD, snuggled closely together. But as Ben breathed in and out, Kelly couldn't help but notice how rigidly he sat as she leaned against his chest. Distracted and distant, he was like some kind of primitive spring-loaded machine pulled to more tension than it was designed to withstand, almost quivering as if it was about to blast apart from the stress it was under. It was her fault, she quickly assumed. He didn't particularly like watching superhero movies, and she had been surprised when he'd caved in earlier. It was blatantly obvious that sitting through it was tantamount to torture. But, she reckoned, at least he was awake this time. Usually, he was fast asleep ten minutes into it.

With a soft sigh and remorseful smile, she grabbed the remote from the coffee table and turned it off. "It's all right," she told him. "I know these kinds of movies aren't your thing. Next time we can watch something with zombies." When he didn't respond, she said, "Ben?"

It jarred him from his trance and startled, he shook his head. "What? Oh, yeah. That's fine."

"What's the matter with you today?" she asked her fiancé, her tone shifting to one of concern. "You've been in your own little-"

Abruptly, Ben jumped to his feet and looked out of the front window. Light from the street shined like muted gold on his face. Worry lines marred his smooth, coffee-colored forehead and the vague expression in his eyes placed him thousands of miles away. He blinked, wiped his mouth, and then whirled around to grab his jacket from the hook.

"Ben, what's the matter?" she demanded to know as she now jumped to her feet as well.

"Baby, I have to go out for a little while," he cryptically told her.

"What?" Kelly's voice was like an ice pick, even to her own ears.

"I have to go see someone," he mumbled. "It's important. Dead important."

"Is this a joke?" she yelped. "It's midnight! Who are you going to see that's so important anyway?"

"I won't be long," he told her as he now stepped out into the night. "I'm sorry, but it couldn't wait. I should've taken care of it sooner…" He shook his head in something like regret. "Don't wait up." Then he thought about it, faced her again, and promptly kissed her on the cheek. "Love you."

"Ben!" she cried as he hurried away to his car. But he ignored her and quickly sped away, leaving her standing bewildered on their front stoop.

It was the last time Kelly saw him alive.

Kurtis Stryker finally gave up trying to sleep when he felt the first rays of daylight shine on his face, warming his cheeks. His neck ached badly from sleeping on the couch all night. Noah had offered to make up his air mattress that he primarily used for camping, but the detective didn't want to intrude on him any more than he had, so he opted to sleep on the sofa. He'd really wanted to sleep in the king sized bed with his new boyfriend, but the pediatrician was a little old-fashioned and wanted to date a little while before actually sleeping together. It was just as well. Kurtis still smarted after listening to Kadeem rant and rave and insult him the night before, and he was in a sour mood. The sex wouldn't have been any good. Groaning in pain, he sat up and gingerly pulled his t-shirt over his head and then his shoes onto his feet.

Just as he finished tying his laces, Noah emerged from the kitchen in time to see Kurtis rubbing his neck, prompting him to smirk and say, "I told you to go with the air mattress."

The detective tried to face him, but a sharp cluster of needles in his neck abruptly stopped him. "Ow!" he grimaced as Noah held out a mug of coffee for him to take. "No, the couch was fine," he insisted, lying through his teeth. "It was very nice. Very cozy. I just slept wrong. But it was very kind of you to let me stay."

The pediatrician smirked. "Well, maybe next time I'll let you curl up at the foot of my bed," he said as he sat on the armrest beside him.

Kurtis cast him a subtle, flirty smile. "And the time after that?"

Noah didn't answer but grinned and then grabbed the remote to turn on the morning news. "Make yourself useful and make us some breakfast," he said. "I need a shower."

"I can't cook," he called after him as the other walked off.

"You're a cop. You're not going to convince me that you don't know how takeout works," he shot back.

The detective chuckled and then looked at the flat screen to see the end of a report about a rare painting selling for 32 million dollars in some fancy gallery up in Manhattan. He let out a low whistle in astonishment as he wondered what it would be like to have so much money that he could just drop 32 mil on an old painting.

And then, the attractive male news anchor said, "Police are investigating an explosion that happened late last night in Brooklyn only blocks away from the Holocaust Memorial Park. Phillip Farria is on scene." Kurtis, who was now looking at his phone for any missed messages, immediately looked up to listen. That wasn't far from his apartment. The camera cut to the reporter standing on a familiar corner.

"That's right, Jon, there was a huge explosion in this sleepy Brooklyn neighborhood last night just after midnight," the reporter said as firefighters worked behind him to hose down rising flames. "It happened in an apartment complex on East 11th Street between Avenues X and Y, leaving one person dead and seven more critically injured…"

Kurtis' heart lurched. That wasn't just his neighborhood, that was his street. And that was just after he'd left his apartment in a huff because Kadeem was acting like a douche- His train of thought abruptly stopped, shifted, and focused on his partner. Was he okay? Quickly, he dialed his number. It went straight to his voicemail: I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom I can tell you I don't have money, but what I do have are a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you leave me a voicemail now that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you and I will call you. The detective got to his feet and grabbed his jacket, too worried now to even roll his eyes at his best friend's obnoxious message.

"Noah!" he yelled as he headed for the door. "I've got to go!"

The hour-long ride back to his apartment could have very well taken eons, but when the taxi driver dropped him off at the same corner the reporter had been standing earlier, Kurtis bolted through the police tape towards the small house that had been renovated into three separate apartments. He flashed his badge at the cops securing the scene, vaguely yelling that he lived here, and danced around the forensics team that was studying the damage. Blessedly, it looked as if the explosion had occurred in the sprawling apartment complex across the street from his own place, with charred red bricks tumbled into the street in chunks. But his own apartment hadn't gotten out of this unscathed; all the windows on its front face were shattered, and part of the wall had snapped inward.

"Kabal!" he shouted as he thundered up the wooden staircase on the side of the building to their place. "Are you alright?" On the brink of panic, he threw the door open-

-only to see Kadeem calmly sitting on one of their slightly charred recliners, with SSA Mikhai Walker sitting on the other one. The FBI agent was a towering black man to put his friend, Jax, to shame, with muscles so large they fit tightly into his gray suit sleeves like sausages and a body so bulky that he comically bulged from his chair like an adult sitting on a child's sized chair. Kurtis knew the man had played college football before he joined Quantico. Both men barely looked up at him before his partner looked back to his handler and simply said, "I can't."

"Can't?" Agent Walker skeptically repeated.

"I'm swamped with work," he lied and then looked at his partner. "Hey, Kurtis."

"Are you okay?" Stryker demanded to know. "I saw it on the TV-"

Distractedly, his partner recoiled. "Oh, yeah. Gas leak, they're saying."

"I was afraid it was terrorists," he told him. "We are coming up on the anniversary of 9/11."

The burned man scoffed. "Well, if it was that, they were unimaginative terrorists. Blowing up an apartment complex to take out just a few people? I doubt it. Hardly 9/11-worthy." Then he looked at Agent Walker again. "I'm sorry, but I've got too many things going on, and all of it is too big to waste on this."

"Bigger than national security?" he retorted in his baritone voice.

"If you're so anxious, why don't you investigate it yourself?" Kadeem now wondered.

"You have an in with people who would like to get their hands on classified information," he said, clearly unmoved. Then he looked at the other detective. "Maybe you can talk sense into him, Kurtis. For someone in the uniquely precarious position Detective Kabal finds himself in, he can be quite obstinate."

"Not obstinate, just practical," the other corrected. "Perhaps you've forgotten, Chief, but I'm on the top of the public enemy list with those crews these days. They know I'm a cop. They won't talk to me anymore. More likely they'd try to kill me. So again, why don't you get your hands dirty for once?"

"Oh, no, I can't afford to do field work right now, not with the elections so close-" He abruptly stopped himself and smiled wolfishly. "Well, you don't need to know about that. Besides, a case like this? Seems like it's more your speed than mine."

Kabal blinked behind his mask and finally focused on Stryker. "How's Noah, Kurtis? How was the air mattress?"

"It was the couch, Kabal," Agent Walker corrected him.

Kadeem cocked his head and then nodded in agreement. "Yeah," he thoughtfully replied.

The detective frowned and looked at both of them with a dumbfounded expression. "How?" And then he sighed. He knew the FBI had been watching both him and Kabal - and all of the Earthrealm Champions - since knowledge of Outworld and the other Realms became common. "Oh, never mind," he waved them off and left the sanctity of the doorframe, closing the door behind him.

"What's it like working with one of the most dangerous criminals in the world?" the FBI agent asked him.

"It's all in my reports," Kurtis replied, exchanging a glance with his partner. "And he was one of the most dangerous criminals in the world. Now he's a good guy. One of us."

"That remains to be seen," he said. "So tell me what it's like to live with him? A hell on Earth, I'd imagine."

He shifted from foot to foot, noting his partner's growing tension. "Well, I'm never bored," he said, treading carefully so as not to upset Kadeem again.

"Interesting," Agent Walker said, thoughtfully stroking his freshly-shaven chin. "I think Kabal's a live wire. Dangerous if you get too close. And smart as a fox. Too bad he doesn't have all of his priorities straight right now." He got to his feet and grabbed a manila folder from the end table before holding it out to Kurtis. "Benjamin Jones, known to his friends and family as Ben. Low level CIA desk jockey. Found dead on the subway rails at Pelham Bay Park. Head smashed in."

"Jumped in front of the train?" the detective asked him.

"That seems a logical assumption to make."

"But?"

"But?" Agent Walker repeated.

"But if it was just a suicide or an accident, you wouldn't be here bothering us," he deduced.

From his spot on the recliner, Kadeem just chuckled while their visitor ignored him. "The DoD has been working on a new missile defense program based on the invasion of Outworld by the Emperor. They don't want to see that level of destruction happen again, and so they've been developing a way to prevent unsanctioned crossing of Outer-Realmers into Earthrealm. The plans for it were on a memory stick in Mr. Jones' possession."

"You'd think the DoD would be more careful than that," he jabbed at him.

Agent Walker withered and put on a forced smile. "It wasn't the only copy," he told him. "But it is secret. And it is missing."

"Top secret?" Kurtis asked, already knowing the answer, unable to resist all the same.

"Very," he said. "We think Jones took the memory stick and we can't risk having it fall into the wrong hands. We want you two to find those plans."

"Hmph," Kadeem scoffed, all but telling him no.

It was a point not lost on him because he quickly whipped around and glared at the detective. "Don't make me order you," he growled.

"I'd like to see you try," the burned man all but dared. "Especially since this sounds more like a job for Homeland Security."

"Think it over," Agent Walker said through pressed lips. "Think about all you stand to lose because of your sordid past." Then he faced Kurtis. "It was nice seeing you, Detective Stryker. I'll be seeing you again soon. Very soon."

Before he had a chance to reply, Kadeem leapt to his feet and sped to the xylophone that he'd won in a card game before he started playing the Imperial March from Star Wars. The tune sounded silly on the xylophone, but he knew that's why his best friend did it. The FBI agent cast him an irritated glare, but left the apartment without another word.

When he was gone, Kurtis sat down in the recliner. "Why did you lie?" he wanted to know.

"What?"

"You lied to him. You don't have a single thing going on right now. Major Crimes has been unusually quiet as of late. That's why Kano took a beating."

"Why shouldn't I lie to him? He's an enormous dickhead."

"Oh, sticking it to Daddy, I see," he chuckled as he watched his friend put his xylophone mallets away. "Don't like being told what to do by an authority figure because of your unresolved issues with your father. Now we're getting somewhere."

As he said it, Kadeem's phone began to ring, the ringtone set to an old country song called "Take This Job and Shove It." Lieutenant Mansfield, their boss. His partner quickly grabbed it from his pants pocket and answered, "This is Kabal." He silently began to listen, and from his spot Kurtis could vaguely hear the woman's garbled voice. "How could I refuse?" he finally said. "We'll be there shortly." Then he hung up the phone.

"She wants us to work some overtime, I take it?" he asked him when his friend grabbed his trenchcoat.

"She profusely apologizes for interrupting our days off, but she says it's something we're gonna want to see for ourselves," he explained with an enthusiastic smile in his voice, the first in nearly a month.

"Then what are we waiting for?" Kurtis replied, following his partner out the door.

Praxus84, congratulations on being the first reviewer to comment on this story :) And haha, yeah, but it wasn't really drama so much as just having a busy summer. My friend got married, I went on vacation, saw some baseball games, sent my son off to Washington D.C. for an academic summer camp, sent my daughter to college, and work, work, work in between. I do think working in a prison will give me some unique insight into how Kabal and Stryker should be depicted given that they, like me, are law enforcement officers. It's how I knew how to describe Riker's Island even though I've never been there once. Either way, I hope it's a satisfying read.

Reptaliator, in my head canon, Stryker is a little fussy and OCD and super health conscious, so since I imagine him and Kabal as best friends and roommates, it made sense to me to have some of his more peculiar traits rub off on Kabal. :)

SpinoGuy, yeah, I just had the idea out of nowhere to merge a Sherlock Holmes story with Kabal and Stryker since they're detectives, and in Monster I've portrayed Kabal being good at his job. I'm glad you like the dynamic I've made with these two, and I hope you continue to enjoy this story.

ROCuevas, thanks!

Pom Rania, I hadn't heard that before about the sweating, so I did some research and looked it up, and you were right. So I'll have to revise that later on so that he's not sweating.

DinoLord00, well, like I told Praxus84 above, I'm not really having a rough time, just a busy time. But thank you for the well wishes regardless :) I agree that usually MK fan-fic is like the archetypal "save the world" trope, and while that's fun too, it's also a lot of headache and hard work. I wanted to take a break from that and just write something a little more in the microcosm of things and show off one of my favorite characters having an adventure outside of the normal death and destruction. I don't know how gritty it'll be but I'll try and keep it like a detective noir tone as much as possible. And thanks for the kudos! I hope this story is enjoyable through and through :)

The-06, my friend, it's good to see you! Thank you for the review! :)